Interlude
On Pilots
Many theories have been posited as to why an organic mind – and it is specifically organic – is required to Pilot arcspace travel. None withstand the rigours of scientific investigation.
The collective failure of the galaxy to understand a thing so fundamental to modern civilisation is distressing – frightening, even.
Especially as, whatever we can say about that ruptured fold of time through which faster-than-light travel is made possible, one thing is certain: arcspace is not a void.
There is something out there, defying measurement.
The more alarmist might add: and it is watching.
Personally I find the tendency of people to invent some unprovable, fancy-sounding stories to try and explain away this thing that scares them far more distressing than accepting an ignorance that has yet to be solved.
On Pilot Selection
The Xi choose their Pilots through a volunteer programme, open to anyone between fifty and eighty-three years of age.
78 per cent of candidates are eliminated at initial assessment, and the remaining 22 per cent are monitored for a duration of five years, during which time they may withdraw, no questions asked.
At the end of this period, final candidates are put through a barrage of psychological tests, with an average of 6 per cent judged as eligible to serve.
Of that 6 per cent, priority is given to those with long-term degenerative and terminal illnesses.
Once cleared for flight, they are given two months to be with family, friends and loved ones.
Pilots are only allowed to fly once, and are retired upon completion of said voyage to a luxuriously appointed and highly isolated archipelago, under polite yet firm military observation.
This methodology has a number of consequences.
With such a small pool of Pilots to pull from, Xi arcspace flights are rare, solemn events, and thus Xihana possesses an unusually small fleet of unusually vast city-sized ships that rival the old, lumbering slowships of pre-arcspace days, their scale compensating for the infrequency of launch.
Though their Pilot scheme has one of the highest safety records of any in the Accord, in the unlikely event that a ship is consumed by the silent dark, the loss in terms of personnel and material can be catastrophic.
The Eyrie has a strict fifteen-year Pilot selection programme.
Individuals are put through rigorous physical and psychological training, earning a reputation as the toughest of the tough, the bravest of the brave.
Afterwards, graduates will fly a maximum of eight Pilot sorties, before being retired to a life of socially distanced celebrity.
There is no evidence that this programme produces increased safety benefits in-flight; however, the Eyrie’s Pilot programme remains highly subscribed owing to a long-running series of dramatic presentations ranging from young adult dramas set in training academies through to schlocky soaps depicting the often glamorous and sexually exaggerated lifestyles of this elite and their squabbling families.
The occasional complete mental collapse and psychosis Pilots can experience at the end of their service is a dramatic plot point, not a theme.
Consequently the Eyrie runs more arcspace flights than many Accord members, even if their risk mitigation remains for all practical purposes entirely minimal.
The Shine is one of the few polities to use prisoners for Pilot work.
To minimise the inherent risk in forcefully interfacing an unvetted organic mind with the arcspace systems of an FTL ship, it is standard practice to irradiate parts of a Pilot’s brain, reducing them to a mere organic husk through which navigational protocols may pass.
This, the Shine claim, can enable reuse of a Pilot up to twenty times before they are declared brain-dead.
From a safety perspective, the method is a disaster, with the attrition rate of ships lost to the dark speculated to be as high as 1:8,000 (and likely far higher).
However, the ease of finding the aforementioned forced labour means that the Shine has developed an extensive infrastructure of small-vessel courier and pleasure ships, flitting passengers around the galaxy as if arcspace travel were just a merry little paddle across a pond.
Quanmech minds have not yet found a way to integrate their consciousnesses successfully with arcspace navigation systems, and either rely on slowships or hired organic Pilots.
It is not known how the Slow travels across the infinite dark.